Bij de Opening van het Badsaizoen (At the Opening of the Bathing Season)

This wood engraving satirizes the fashionable bathing attire and social pretensions of Dutch seaside society. Two women stand on the beach in elaborate costumes—one modest and composed, the other draped in excessive fabric and ornamentation—while bathers and onlookers populate the shore behind them. The accompanying verse mocks the contradiction between claimed modesty and actual display: "When you see this fabric with attention, Then the beach is clear as day—see, How different also in schizo, Many beautiful flowers are there."

The print belongs to a rich European tradition of fashion and manners satire descending from Hogarth and Gillray, where costume and social behavior become vehicles for social commentary. Dutch picture-sheets and satirical prints like this one directly influenced later comic strips through their sequential visual narrative and reliance on recognizable types.